RUMOR: Nintendo originally planned to bring Virtual Console to Switch with new features
It’s been years now since the heyday of Nintendo’s Virtual Console program, which allowed gamers to buy individual retro titles on the Wii, Wii U, and 3DS. It’s been replaced on the Switch by Nintendo Switch Online, which offers a selection of titles that are only available for a yearly subscription fee. According to some newly discovered leaks, it sounds like Nintendo once had different plans for the Switch.
This news comes from some leaked e-mails from the gaming emulation company iQue, and was shared by luigiblood via Yakumono’s Blog. According to the leaks, there was originally some software codenamed ‘Clipper’ which was a planned Virtual Console for Switch. This would have worked much like the previous Virtual Console iterations, with a few key differences:
- Players would get access to one free NES or SNES game each month
- Retro-inspired animations would play before loading games, mimicking the feel of a CRT TV
- There may have been the ability to change the speed of a game (slow, normal, fast)
- Online play would have been included, along with a mode which would randomly shuffle players’ controllers every 30 seconds during gameplay
- Some games mentioned in testing include Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy III, Mega Man 2-6, Ganbare Goemon! Karakuri dōchū, Star Luster, Banjo-Kazooie, Blast Corps, and Ogre Battle 64
Of course, Nintendo ended up going a different direction with the Switch. We’ll see if they continue with the same methods for their next console.
Click here to read more insight into the behind the scenes workings of the Switch Virtual Console plans, plus more info gleaned from these leaked e-mails.
